On my way home from Florida a few days ago, I noticed the roof vent crank wasn't working and I couldn't raise the lid. The crank would just spin. I figured the screw holding the crank on had loosened or fallen out. But a quick try to tighten the screw didn't help.
This is on my 2001 Hawk and it's a non-powered vent. It appears to have been made by Elixir Industries as it has the word ELIXIR molded into the plastic near the crank.
I removed the screw from the crank and it came off easily. I tried turning the slotted shaft (that the crank is attached to) and had no resistance at all. I thought the gears inside the gear housing must be stripped.
In the above photo, the front of the vent is to the right. We see the lifting arm in the metal slot at top and we see the gear-housing and slotted shaft the crank attaches to on the right. I was happy to see the yellow and brown wires terminated by the blue connectors. Those are the electrical pre-wiring for a powered vent. If I want to upgrade to a powered vent some day, I can just connect to those. They are on the same circuit as the ceiling lights.
This is the exposed side of the trim ring. It's actually two rings, an inner and an outer. The inner is attached to the vent's metal cross-bar by two deeply-recessed Philips screws. The outer is attached to roof frame members by four hex-head screws. To remove the trim ring assembly, remove the crank and then the deeply-recessed Philips screws in the inner ring, then the four hex-head screws of the outer ring and carefully pull down on the assembly.
This photo shows the upper or hidden side of the trim ring. We can see the screw-hole bosses where the inner ring screws up tight against the metal cross-arm of the vent.
And here's where my problem was. The lifting arm's gear is normally held in place by a rolled pin in that hole in the gear-housing. In this case, the pin had somehow shifted in the hole until the lift-arm gear was no longer held in place. The pin was still there, it was just sticking out. After working with it a bit to confirm operation, I opted to replace the pin with a 1/4" machine screw and nut secured with a bit of Loctite. (Note- in the photo, I'm holding the lifting arm up so we can see the gear-end. The only clue there was something not quite right was the rolled pin sticking out from the side of the gear housing)
Edited by Old Crow, 23 March 2023 - 11:13 PM.
